


Burden

by PaP



Category: Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW Comics), Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Codependency, F/F, Female Friendship, Guilty Pleasures, Introspection, Non-Linear Narrative, Sadomasochism, Self-Hatred, Self-Sacrifice, Tragic Romance, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-07 11:10:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 15,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20974934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaP/pseuds/PaP
Summary: Whisper lets go. Tangle catches her. It hurts differently to be together, or alone.





	1. the ocean

"Hey, there." Tangle gently raps her knuckles once over the curve of Whisper's mask, a cheeky gesture, before leaning in to smile softly at the gleaming lens. "Are you gonna hide from every compliment?"

"Yes," is the demur, soft-spoken reply, after a momentary pause.

"I see. 'Cause it's seriously adorable and it only tempts me more."

Giggling very faintly, muffled by the mask, the wolf tries to bury her blushing muzzle deeper within the safe recess of anonymity, but the way her powerful curves shift indicates that she is quite content in this moment.

"Aw." Lithe and slender, the lemur now rests her cheek against the cool, unyielding surface, nuzzling against it. "But I like to see you."

"Oh, Tangle."

"Yes, Whisper?"

"You're…"

"Mmyes…?"

"Too much," is the amused, gently sardonic conclusion as a strong, clawed hand very carefully settles on a shoulder. The wolf does not push away, instead providing a subtle invitation to remain close, easily broken by a shrug that never manifests.

The lemur grins broadly, now, albeit the expression is a little smothered. "Do I drive you nuts?"

"Happily, yes."

"Stockholm syndrome or something, right?"

Whisper reaches and Tangle, intimately acquainted with the gesture, quickly pulls back enough not to impede, amethyst eyes always impressed as the wolf nimbly tips the mask away, exposing herself to the lemur's gaze.

"I'm the worst."

"Totally." Curved fangs, provoking the flirtatious insinuation of danger, add a quirky appeal to Whisper's kindly countenance, only heightened by the rosy hue that has spread along her muzzle.

Tangle sucks in a breath, then lets it out slowly, dramatically, and asks in a sombre tone, "How do you put up with me?"

At this the wolf shakes her elegant head. "Dunno."

"You just like me for some reason."

"Basically."

"I'm so lucky." The lemur's tail curls loosely around them both, providing a ring of intimacy in this grassy place beneath the shade of a tree. She ponders the strange sensation of being seen, assessed even, by a predator who hardly opens her eyes.

"Perhaps…"

"Oh?"

Whisper enjoys the harmless jesting after acclimatising to so much tragedy for so long, taking a moment to listen to the play of the Wisps before she utters, "You're fluffy."

"I'm fluffy?"

"Yes."

"That's what you like about me, huh? My fluff? My fluffiness?"

"Perhaps that is it."

"Could be!"

The wolf hesitates.

"You know I don't mind."

"Yes."

The lemur offers a very endearing expression, provoking the wolf to sigh with fondness, mysteriously quite capable of appreciating the pretty nuance.

"Really?"

"What?"

"That's quite unnecessary."

"I'm not sure what you mean."

"The eyelash fluttering."

"Gee, but this is just my usual facial expression."

"Hush." Charmed enough to overcome, the wolf takes fur between her fingers, mussing the tuft that grows between the lemur's happily bent ears. They touch rarely. Even rarer, still, does Whisper initiate. "Fluffy miscreant."

Tangle demurely lowers her head a little, enjoying the attention very much.

"I've had fun, today."

"Yeah. Me, too."

"Thanks."

"Hey. Likewise."

"Soft," is the timid observation, spoken quietly, after a pause in which the women wonder why it has continued this long.

"Soft as it looks?"

"Softer."

"Wow."

"Yes."

The lemur is almost purring. Almost forgetful of the strangeness of this exchange.

The wolf, giving in to the loneliness that despair can bring, says without thought as to consequence, "S'cute."

Tangle's amethyst eyes shyly cast aside.

Whisper only now realises what was said on a tentative, hardly explored whim and mourns how irretrievable words are once spoken, taking back her hand slowly and with a wince.

"It's okay."

"Sorry."

"Don't worry about it. All good, see?"

"I… Um…"

Before the lemur can comfort or protest, the mask has been lowered once more.

The wolf clears her throat delicately, then grows still and silent. She retreats into herself, but accepts an approaching Wisp, offering it a place in her lap and an abundance of her affection.

Hopeful to lighten the mood, but unsure of what to say, Tangle leans back, bracing herself on palms buried in the grass, and says with a break in her voice, "I go through a lot of hair brushes, lemme tell ya."

Anonymous and unintentionally standoffish once more, Whisper runs her offending claws lightly over the Wisp's increasingly drowsy head.

* * *

"I… I want…"

Having intended a fun evening indoors, the hours remaining to them to be spent playing board games and talking to take shelter from the rain, they did not mean to encounter stifling sexual tension when the games ended and conversation died and they found themselves here.

"I'm not used to… wanting… like this…"

Tangle has taken the mask away and placed it aside, forcing Whisper to attempt to use words and bodily language instead. The lemur did so at the wolf's request and now sits on the edge of the bed, drawing comforting shapes over the larger hand splayed flat over the covers, feeling the rigidity in those strong fingers, sinking into folds.

Whisper opens and closes her mouth, blue glimmering in the slits of her gaze, as she tries to find the means to communicate in the wall past Tangle's compassionate face.

The lemur doesn't interrupt, only highlighting the wolf's ineptitude, which is frustrating for a woman usually so capable.

The clock on the wall ticks in defiance of the silence of this otherness.

"You," Whisper manages in a hoarse undertone, after a faint gasp.

Tangle's brows crease together, an expression of relief or confusion or worry. It's hard to tell.

"I want you."

The lemur is suddenly reminded that this is a predator she is alone with, as the wolf's tongue shyly parts lip from fang, lapping at nervousness or excitement or anger. Those open eyes and faraway stare make it hard to tell.

"I want your… body."

Tangle's heart is roaring in its cage, filling her ears with its noise, but it isn't enough to drown Whisper's voice.

"I want to… touch."

The lemur can see the wolf is suffering and it hurts just to watch.

"Feel you. Feel your… body."

Fear forms a stone in Tangle's lower belly, arousal pooling as the heat between her thighs.

"Smell you. Taste you." Whisper closes her eyes again and shakes her head, tossing her fur. "I thought if I just… ignored it, then… it would go away on its own."

"How long?"

These are the first words the lemur has spoken and they're enough to make the wolf flinch.

"How long have you felt this way?"

"I… I can't…"

"Does it hurt?"

"Yes, but…"

"I'm so sorry."

"No," Whisper says, imbuing the word with unique forcefulness without needing to raise her voice. "Not your fault. Mine. My…"

Tangle tries to release the clawed grip from the bedding in patient, cautious inches.

"Your body."

Eventually, the lemur has the wolf's hand in a fumbling grasp, drawing it closer without meeting resistance.

"I think about you, your body, and…"

Tangle watches herself pull off the glove.

"What… are you…?"

She deposits clumsy, sincere kisses on Whisper's trembling fingers, one at a time.

Something so chase, yet alien, causes the wolf to whimper, then whine.

The lemur soon runs out of fingers, ending at the thumb, and is once again at a loss.

"Tangle, I…"

"Whisper. Honestly, I've never done this, before."

"Are we…?"

"If you want to."

"I want…"

The lemur watches the wolf's fingers splay apart, then bend, like talons.

"I hunger. Don't mean to hurt you. Just…"

"I know," Tangle murmurs unintelligibly into Whisper's palm as her hand rises to cup the lemur's silky face, crushing the words.

The wolf swallows a moan as kisses drag their way further, grazing the flickering line of her pulse along her inner wrist.

* * *

"You okay?"

"Well. It hurts to move in places, but other than that, I feel great!"

Whisper breathes her apologies into the littering scratches that mar Tangle's back, caressing the indentation of teeth at her hip.

"Don't worry 'bout it." The lemur is piled up on pillows, the blanket piled over her curled tail. "For real, though. I had an awesome time last night."

"Me, too."

"Aaannd early this morning."

"Very early."

"Wow."

"Yes. Wow."

"Didn't think I was gonna unleash your inner beast, but I'm really glad I got the chance to see that side of you."

"You were frightened."

"I was. Still glad."

"The entire time. I could sense it. I…" The wolf presses herself against the symptoms of pleasure and pain, as if to experience what she wrought with her own body. "I didn't mean to–"

"You unloaded years of feeling on me in the span of, what, a few hours?" Tangle turns to smile back from over a bruise in her shoulder. "I'm tough enough to take it and you never had an outlet quite like me, before."

"This isn't right. It… wasn't right."

"Maybe not, but it's done, now, so why fret?"

"Tangle, I… I love you."

"I know. I love you, too."

"I'm… damaged."

"Yeah. We all are."

"I love you." Whisper feels her lover revolve in her arms, slowly rolling over to trail calloused fingertips over the pebbling peaks of breasts, littered with old scars from old battles, whilst depositing little kisses that do their meagre best to soften the severity of a tensed jaw. "But I don't understand you."

The clock ticks.


	2. croissant

"I don't wanna lose–"

The snap of a twig underfoot draws Whisper from her recollections. She turns sharply to discover Tangle comically stooped over, evidently having attempted to slip by unnoticed.

"Whoops."

The wolf is struck by the loveliness of the lemur's apologetic smirk.

"Sorry. I'm a klutz!"

"Yes. You are."

"Err… I was cold, so–"

"S'fine."

"You can go, um, right back to your thoughts! I'll just take a second here… and make a bit of a racket…"

Whisper unknowingly smiles and relaxes as Tangle takes a seat closer to the fire, hands outstretched for warmth.

"Ahh…"

"Better?"

"So much."

The wolf had been staring into the flames for some time. The light has left its imprint in her vision, temporarily clouding the lemur's friendly shape.

Tangle is coming back into focus, wrapping her tail around herself like the most wonderful scarf.

"Why aren't you asleep?"

"I tried, I really did, but I'm restless, tonight."

"You need the rest. Find it."

"I know, I know. I'm just so excited to be out here, in the wilds, camping like the old days, with you!"

Whisper chuckles faintly, briefly.

"I'll be up a little longer, just until my eyelids start getting heavy, again."

The wolf watches the lemur, the way the fire casts its glow over soft shapes and slender limbs where exposed despite the embrace of her tail, dancing light pooling within amethyst eyes.

"You're staring at me, again."

Whisper says a quick, quiet apology, turning back to the fire itself.

There's not much distance between them.

Tangle grits her teeth, hoping that this isn't foolish, then says gently, "I don't mind."

The wolf turns an ear toward the lemur.

"I don't mind it at all."

"S'creepy."

"No, it's not."

Whisper can see Tangle in the periphery, casting a strange gaze at the stars, broken by the leafy canopy.

"It's something else."

"Oh?"

"I kind of… feel…"

The wolf is patient, waiting without a sound, even though the lemur takes perhaps too long to finish this thought.

"Naked."

Whisper can't resist turning to Tangle, who turns back with a shrug.

"It's like you see through my clothes." The lemur now reaches for her chest, pawing at fur and fabric. "Like you're looking at my body for what it is. And maybe you see further. I mean… beyond my skin. Beneath."

"Something inside?"

"Yup."

"Am I judging you?"

"I hope not. But sometimes, I think you are."

"Unnerving."

"Like I said, though. I don't mind it."

"You tolerate so much of me. The stuff I mean and the stuff I don't."

"Tolerate? Bah! I'm happy with you."

"Bizarre."

"Girl, what're you talking about? You're amazing!"

"Hrrmph."

"Am I… being too much, again?"

"Yes." The wolf swallows, because there's a lump in her throat, again, throbbing and swelling. "But," she chokes out, barely audible above the ambience of the night and their campsite, "I like it."

"Ohh."

"I like… the kind things you say. Even if I don't believe you."

"You really should. I'm no liar."

"S'nice."

"Oh, Whisper."

The mask rests against a rock nearby, yet its mistress doesn't bother reaching back.

"You're amazing. Really, really amazing."

"Thank you."

"I like your stuff. All your stuff. The stuff about you." Tangle shyly rubs the thick fluff between her ears, casting it into further appealing disarray. "The stuff that makes you smile and the stuff that hurts you, too."

"I still don't understand you."

"Doesn't have to make sense, it just is."

"Have I been staring, more than before?"

"Yeah."

"Am I frightening you?"

"I said I don't mind it."

"But are you afraid of me?"

Amethyst eyes linger on Whisper's sombre, blushing anxiety, filled with kindness rather than pity.

"Then…"

"I can take it."

"Tangle, what kind of friend am I?"

"Heh. That's easy."

The wolf allows the lemur to offer her hand, extending a lithe arm slowly, carefully, until a calloused finger caresses the noble curve of Whisper's cheek, over her lips and fang, down to her chin.

"You're the wonderful, steadfast, adorable kind," Tangle says with a wink that makes the wolf pick coyly at her armoured leggings.

"Adorable?"

"You wag your tail for pastries, though you're gonna deny it any sec–"

"I do not wag my tail."

"See?" That finger draws a delicate, pleasurable circle, victorious and gloating. "There ya go."

"I never wag my tail. Not for anything."

"You so do."

"Nuh-uh."

"Jewel saw it, too."

"Oh, god. My mask."

The lemur's hand blossoms, fingers uncurling to cup the sturdy jaw unthinkingly, naturally, unmet by resistance or unease.

"Nrrrph."

"And did I ever tell you? You make the cutest sounds, too."

The mask remains in its discarded place, disjointed and haunted.

"And don't get me started on how nicely you treat your Wisps…"

"I'm not s'posed to be cute."

"Too bad, then, 'cause you are."

"Ugh."

There is mingling laughter, lost to the dark beyond. In these moments, both women are entirely comfortable to be alone, together. Until they remember who they are and realise what they're doing, they enjoy their shared bliss. It's over too soon.

Tangle takes her hand away and Whisper's head falls slightly, sinking upon her shoulders, lacking the comforting support and weighed with a confusing mix of disappointment, hurt and resignation.

The fire crackles and spits.

"I… should go back to bed."

"Yes."

"Got an adventure, tomorrow!"

"Yes…"

The lemur nimbly rises to her feet, tail uncurling, reminding the wolf of a dancer's unfurling ribbon.

"Wait."

Tangle gazes down on Whisper, still seated.

"I… I, uh…"

The lemur seems to understand, giving a patient nod and lopsided smile in turn.

The wolf, dissatisfied, surrenders to her silence with an awkward wave.

"Goodnight, Whisper."

"G'night." The hand falters as narrow hips turn, supporting a curved spine and sweeping tail, beauty turning with it, turning away. Doing nothing to stop this retreat, Whisper ends quietly, "Tangle," without the intention of being heard.

The lemur settles down and curls up and tries not to cry, unsure of how to process this newer pain.

The wolf stews in her own self-hatred and leaps to the easier conclusion, remembering her first discovery of the buck of those hips.

They're alone together.

With closed eyes and uneven breaths, Tangle tries to seek dreams with the feeling of Whisper's eyes upon the lemur's vulnerable rear, open somewhere, shifting with the wolf's silent, predatory movements.

Whatever happens, here, will stay between them.

Tangle waits like prey as she attempts to deny it, then to find the thrill in it, thighs clenched and fingers sinking into her sleeping bag. She could crawl out and run. She could crawl out and reason. She could crawl out and fight.

There's a breeze that carries the musk of the earth, the musk of it.

She does nothing and she thinks she wants it, then almost regrets it, when there's weight pinning her down and a prickling in her flesh and her sweat is cold. Suddenly, she's drenched in it, stifling her cry of desire as the physical manifestation of the hunt sinks keen teeth deeper, enough to hurt.

Whisper holds for a moment, then releases slowly, tongue lapping at the shallow wound she has left.

"Oh, god…"

With a slight tilt of her head she redirects, her hot breaths filling the space between Tangle's shoulder and flushed cheek.

"Whisper…"

The wolf can sense the lemur's ecstatic distress in capturing the panic of pulsing organs beneath a large, clawed hand as it traces ribs, having slipped easily beneath one layer only to be frustrated by another, burying itself in the creases of clothing, as if to disembowel.

"That's… hnngh…"

With open thighs Whisper mounts Tangle in-between, effectively trapping her within the treacherous, twisted cocoon of her sleeping bag.

"So hot…"

A throaty, quiet growl adds something sinisterly comical to the wolf's pawing attempt at breaching the lemur's outfit, which is impractical for this occasion.

Already trying to maintain fraying wits with noises other than sighs and whimpers and moans, Tangle is lucid enough to utter, "Oh, god…"

The prayer goes unanswered.

"Wait…"

Whisper stops her advances, tense with arousal, the core of it burning against Tangle's hip, searing through.

"Are you… sure?"

Teeth draw close to the corner of a panting mouth, a tentative nuzzle bringing mouths partway together, as if to eat the very words escaping between them.

"I… love you…"

"Oh, Tangle."

"Want you to be… happy… with me…"

The hand moves to turn a body over, pressing one woman flat on her back, straddled by the other.

"You're…"

The wolf takes a moment to admire the lemur's fragile feminine surrender that becomes several moments longer than intended.

"You're staring, again."

Blue eyes gleam in the dark with a light of their own. "Does it bother you?"

Calloused fingers graze along a muzzle's length, trembling. "Maybe… a little."

"Do you like it?"

"Yeah. A lot."

"S'beautiful."

"What's–?"

Whisper lunges for what would have been a swift kill in other circumstances.

Tangle's aloft hand flails at the sky, dragging at impassive stars, before seizing a fistful of silky, trailing fur as she tastes the bruises forming where fangs grind sensually against her lips.

Peeling back the sleeping bag, then straining fabric and twisting at an awkward angle, the wolf drives her claws down the front of the lemur's outfit, seeking modest breasts, dragging ravenous lines over everything in reach.

Tangle had meant to do the right thing, the thing that she should've done before – to suggest that they talk about feelings and trauma and healthier coping mechanisms than this. But she's been craving getting caught and she forgets, now, rubbing her knee against Whisper's lower belly, rubbing lower, still.


	3. we all fall hard at first

Tangle can feel the moment when Whisper internally shuts down, a moment before the slick separation of their bodies manifests this prohibition of intimacy physically, hands pushing shoulders and one muzzle avoiding another.

The ticking clock permeates their mingling breaths, their differing sighs.

The wolf firmly eases the lemur to the other side of the bed, gentle enough to be considerate, considering the loss of virginity and a certain degree of innocence that comes with formerly being untouched, now sullied.

Tangle obediently remains sprawled out on her back like a discarded doll and tries not to take it to heart as she watches Whisper quickly turn over, turning away and taking her beauty with her, hiding her blushing face, the humiliation causing her muscular back to quiver.

Neither of them can claim the normalcy of a couple. None of this had felt natural.

The lemur attempts to caress the anxiety away, but the scarred flesh shrinks back after a few tries.

"Don't," is the hushed warning.

"I'm so sorry."

"No."

The bed feels so cold, now.

"Not your fault."

"I just wanted to be whatever you needed. I still wanna be. I love–"

"You can't."

"But I can try."

Whisper may be crying, but she makes no sound to indicate.

Tangle reaches for the blanket, now, dragging it over their bodies as if hiding their shame, more so than to gain some warmth between them.

"I love you, too."

Sunlight streams in softly.

"Wanna talk about how you're feeling?"

"No."

"Okay."

"But I wish… I could be held."

"Whenever you're ready, I'll be here."

"I'm…"

A moment passes in which there is endless space for painful imagining as to what.

"Coffee?"

The wolf grows still, as if processing a bad joke.

The lemur wants to punch herself in the face, cringing at her own failure as a friend, knowing that what they've done cannot be undone, unsure of the consequences that may follow, hating herself most of all for instigating and not knowing, now, what to do or say to make anything better.

* * *

"I know I must seem terribly unfair to ask this of you, but… please."

The facets of every stone seem to ignite in the reach of the sun.

"Take care of her for me."

The neutral curve of lips gradually changes, betraying uncertainty.

"Do you very best. She's counting on you."

"After last time…"

"You're doubting yourself."

"You doubt me, too."

"I'm putting my trust in you, even if it isn't perfect."

"I can't promise."

"I know." Jewel nods solemnly, otherwise motionless in her impeccable suit, her carapace gleaming in an inappropriately cheerful manner. "Though I wish you could, I understand better, now."

"But I will try."

"Thank you."

There's a stack of paperwork waiting on a desk to be processed.

"Can I say something a little impolite?"

"Okay."

The beetle playfully prods the firm abdomen before her with the blunt end of her pen. "I honestly wish her infatuations were less dangerous!"

A subtly amused nod tells her that she hasn't caused any offence.

* * *

The coffee is getting cold.

"Do you…?"

Whisper drums her claws over the table, her other hand holding the mug aloft, so she can have an excuse to gaze into something, anything, but those endearing amethyst eyes.

"Want to talk…?"

She keeps her breathing steady, no stranger to appearing fine enough, even when she feels only raw.

"About what… happened…?"

She still smiles, though, at the cute way Tangle's voice rises toward the end, trailing uncertainty.

"Now?"

"No."

"Oh. We, uh… probably should, right? Sometime?"

"Probably."

The lemur is clearly unsettled, because she's sitting in her chair like someone with far less energy and enthusiasm for the bittersweet beauty of being alive. Shoulders are brought forward and elbows are propped up before her, allowing her hands to clasp one another for comfort, twiddling fingers providing something to do aside from stare at the outwardly detached wolf, and talk.

"Thank you."

"For what?"

"I'm not sure."

"Huh. That's… interesting."

"You should stop worrying about me."

"You're my friend. Can't help it."

"I'm okay."

"Are you?"

"I'm not sure."

"Again?"

"Yes."

"Oh."

"And you?"

"Heh. Tender, still, but mostly just confused. And I feel like the villain."

"Understandable. But you're not."

"And, well, I really am worried."

"About me."

"About you. And I won't stop worrying until I help you fix this, but… how?"

Finally, Whisper looks up, which is surreal, given her eyes seem sealed.

Tangle has been aching to learn about how one can see without opening their eyes, first. She attempts a reassuring tilt of her brows, which seems to work, a little, because the aloof calm fades slowly before her.

"I'm not okay."

"Didn't think so."

"I'm sorry, too."

"Nothing to feel sorry for."

"The things I… did to you. I was so… rough. I've never…"

"Kinky, sure, but I had a blast."

"It's not just that. I'm not… like that. I'm…"

"Sweet and soft, sometimes. Sometimes, you're distant and hard. But you're a good guy no matter what and I didn't forget that."

"I took it out on you."

The lemur blinks.

The wolf sighs. "Everything."

"Hey. It's okay."

"No."

Tangle grits her teeth.

"It's not."

"Don't go."

Whisper abruptly sets her coffee down.

"Wait."

"It's better, this way."

"Not yet."

"Thank you for having me." Graceful and poised, the wolf rises from her chair. "And thank you for spending your time on me."

"You're gonna disappear, again."

"Yes."

"And I have no idea when or if I'll ever see you again."

"Don't pine for me."

"I love you!"

"You can do so much better."

The lemur clumsily springs to her full height, slamming her palms on the table without concern for spillage, leaning forward to murmur, "Please," into the other woman's face.

"I'm sorry. Maybe, in a little while, we'll be better."

"I'm fine." Tangle is trying to speak calmly, but she defies her efforts with her panicked eyes and panting breaths. "You didn't do anything wrong."

"I hurt you."

"I can take it if it's what you need."

"Stop."

"You're hurting and I wanna help you!"

"You can't fix me."

"I wanna try!"

"S'heroic of you. But futile."

"Don't say that!"

Clawed hands settle on rigid shoulders.

"You're so beautiful and good and you deserve to be happy, too!"

"Tangle…"

"I know I'm a dumbass and I'll probably make you turn grey early because of it, but I've got my uses and I'm happy to be used!"

"Shh."

"No way! I've gotta say this or you'll be gone and you might not come back and then you'll beat yourself up about it all alone with it and you'll never hear me out and I just can't… bear the thought… of you suffering… like that…"

Whisper sees the welling of tears, overflowing.

"I just gotta be heard… I've gotta try…" Tangle's lower lip quivers with delicious emotion in the brief pause she allows herself to think. "Maybe there'll always be cracks here and there, but where there are holes and parts of yourself missing, I can give you some of my pieces to fill them."

"I can't let you sacrifice–"

"That's what love is! Giving yourself away to someone you choose!"

"I don't want–"

The sudden silence is cutting.

"What?"

"Tangle, let's not–"

"You don't want what, Whisper?"

The wolf is openly distressed, almost fearfully gazing into the lemur's hurt eyes, still without words.

"You don't want me?" Tangle isn't angry, but this heartbroken astonishment is worse. "But you said…"

"It's not that."

"Then… what is it?"

Whisper bites her lip again, squeezing those shoulders in a way meant to convey what she means.

"You're scared?"

"I'm scared."

"Me, too. And we can work with that."

"I do want you. But…"

Flesh wounds which glimmered freshly in the dim, have now scabbed over in the light.

"When I had you…"

The lemur takes a chance and stretches over the table, softly pressing her mouth to the wolf's.

The kiss seems to last forever, until it doesn't.


	4. the shore

"Take me with you."

"I shouldn't."

The ticking of a clock ticks away chances of reconciliation and repair, signalling the impending destruction that they are to make.

"You know I shouldn't."

* * *

"So much for sleep," Tangle mutters groggily to herself before yawning with her typical enthusiasm, stretching within the tussled confines of her sleeping bag. Parts of her hurt to move. She can't help but wince a little. But then she looks up through narrowed eyes and smiles.

The sun is broken by the shifting leaves, dancing from the bent fingers of their branches, casting their shade where the light fails.

"What a morning."

Whisper makes a gentle sound of agreement from her place by the fresh fire, evidently having risen sometime before, now bent over a sizzling pan.

"This is how they did it in the old West, yeah? Cowboys and crooks and bounty hunters."

"S'pose so."

After a satisfactory cacophony of cracking cartilage has left the lemur's sinuous body feeling less abused, she thrusts herself upright to sit with her face buried in her palms, wiping away the grime of her minimal rest and quickly smothering the recurring urge to cry.

"Hungry?"

She thinks this whole thing is as absurd as it is perverted. Hands eventually removed after a dramatic downward drag, she replies vaguely, "Yeah," and scoffs. "A bit."

The wolf has been avoiding turning her head to look, unable to trust herself, barely willing to accept what has been done more than once. What she did. Unsure of whether or not this will be the last time.

The silence persists for too long.

Tangle knows they need to talk about it. Or at least discuss the better ways that they can find. But she must initiate. Perhaps these needn't be different conversations. Maybe she can find it in herself to deny this forbidden pleasure. Surely, she's a heroine at heart, but instead of acting like one, she wriggles free and crawls to her feet, stumbling closer to her companion. In places, it really hurts to move.

Whisper nods in greeting as the lemur squats beside the wolf, poised on slender thighs whist a more curvaceous form occupies a flat rock.

"Smells good."

"S'edible."

This makes Tangle smile, even if only slightly.

Whisper eventually speaks again, having evidently digested something else in her mind, her velvety undertones cautious, not quite neutral. "We'll be going, soon."

"Quick breakfast, then."

"Mmhm."

"I'll go pack up the gear, I guess." The lemur rises to her full height again and takes a cursory look over their campsite. "Save us some time while you finish up, here."

"Thank you."

"I see the little ones haven't come back, yet. Or they did and I slept through the reunion."

"Don't worry. They haven't." The wolf gives the encircling treeline a mild-mannered nod. "They'll come back soon."

"I love how you just know that."

"Hard to explain."

"Not everything needs an explanation. You give them your trust and they know when you need them. You never have to call, they come back to you because they want to."

Whisper surprises Tangle by lifting her lupine snout for a mournful gaze toward the shards of the sun.

"It's amazing."

"Yes."

"Then… why are you so sad about it?"

"They know something is wrong between us."

"Oh."

"They're like my…"

"Children?"

"Yes. And now, they're wary of me."

"What?"

"You've noticed, too."

"I… I mean, they've been a little… skittish?"

"They can sense it. My problem. How you're affected by it, by me."

"But they know you'd never–"

"Hurt them." The wolf lowers her head again. "Like I'd never hurt you."

Suddenly, the lemur has nothing to say.

"I'm damaged."

Tangle slowly sits down, gradually sinking to the grassy earth, growing barren toward the fire pit before the women.

"Didn't choose to be alone. Lost my family. Had no one, but those Wisps. Then I got used to it. Until Sonic. Until you." Heavy boots shift in the dirt, scraping shallow grooves. "For a long time, I kept myself away, alone, except for my Wisps. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I was right. But now, I've got you."

Amethyst eyes stare with horrified fascination at the defeated profile of a friend.

"And I like having you around."

A long tail coils nervously in the green, coiling in on itself like a speared snake in its dying throes.

"Don't wanna be without you. But this… I know it's not right."

Calloused fingers sink deeper into bony knees.

"Wish I could say I don't mean it when I hurt you. Wish it didn't feel so good to me, to do it to you." Whisper is rarely this talkative, so listening to her speak at length is always an experience of significance. But it is especially chilling when she raises her voice to an almost conversational tone to say, "I don't know who I'm capable of hurting, anymore," whilst finally turning her head to face Tangle, eyes shut yet seeing, even watchful.

The lemur opens her mouth and says nothing.

The wolf mutters an apology that gets lost to the breeze and it sounds flimsy, even insincere, even to herself.

* * *

"Just had to rain, didn't it?"

The Wisps give the sky a disparaging audience, then worriedly return to Whisper, stoically amidst them.

"God, if I believed…"

The windowpane fogs with her breaths.

She refrains from using inappropriate language, as she always does for the benefit of her Wisps, distractedly offering a caress to whoever wants it, sensing some hesitation.

Water is pouring down in tiny explosions, like bloody bullet wounds and the puncture marks of teeth.

"I'm fine," she says. "Don't worry about me."

None of them believe her.

She had intended to leave, but she is not so cruel as to subject her gear and her companions to this bad weather. Reluctantly, she pulls the curtains closed.

The clock is ticking in another room.

"Was it always this loud?"

Tangle is still asleep, her body battered and sweaty in the elf-destructive contentment of a woman suffering from co-dependency and generosity, yet subconsciously troubled by her bad dreams.

The wolf does not think it wise, or fair, to return to bed. She silently moves toward the couch instead and with an affectionate sound, strips herself of layers whilst the Wisps make themselves mostly comfortable amidst the cushions.

Their eyes follow her, worrying about the changes in her.

She isn't naked by the time she reclines in their warmth, arms open to receive their beloved concerns, lips pressing to innocent frowns in little kisses before she grows still and waits for them to sleep, their littler bodies curled up in the curves and crannies of her own. She finds no peace, not even here, not even like this.

The Wispon, assembled but disarmed, has been set aside. It leans against the corner of the couch, in reach, as if needed. The mask is on the low table, its stare askance, somehow critical.

She feels herself drifting away on a sea of her own unhappiness, until she is nudged ashore, again.

"It's okay. Let her sleep."

The Wisp that probes at her patient cheek seems to be warning her of Tangle's arrival, even if it doesn't know why.

"There, there," the lemur says very softly, leaning in to caress the Wisp, her gaze on the wolf. "Just came to grab a glass of water." _And to check up on you_, goes unsaid, _to see if you've already left without me._

After a moment of supreme guilt, Whisper feels that calloused hand on her own face. Normally, such an invasive and uninvited advance would be promptly yet politely declined, but she remains motionless, unresponsive, unyielding on the outside. Internally absorbent, lustful and heavy with untold desperation, an echoing, gaping loneliness she dares not contemplate too long, for fear of it swallowing her whole.

"It'll be okay."

Judging by the stretch of this silence, the rain has stopped.


	5. pine needles

"I suppose I should be quite used to this by now," Jewel says quietly, followed by a mild-mannered laugh to hide that she's hurting. "But I'm quite fine. Just..."

"Hey."

"Please, don't mind me. I'm just being silly."

"You're never silly."

"Too much paperwork!"

"C'mere."

"Really, I'm absolutely fine."

"Then I'm coming to getcha."

"At least let me put my tea down, first…"

Once the cup has been set aside, Tangle closes the distance with a sincere, smothering embrace.

A perplexingly emotional sigh passes between them, it's progenitor unknown to them both.

"You've missed me more than you let on and I'm such a jerk because I don't need you to tell me. I already know."

"You're trying to maintain my dignity."

"I dunno." Drawing the beetle's torn face close against the soft fur of the lemur's chest, she folds and rests her chin atop a lowered, naturally armoured head, leaning a little into a smaller embrace and putting added weight upon the desk. "I wonder. But I dunno. Maybe I don't wanna know."

The wood groans.

"One of these days, this old thing is going to collapse underneath us both."

"Definitely, yeah."

"And then we'll both be quite the spectacle."

"Mmhm."

The women hold each other as if there is nothing else in existence.

"Tangle…"

"I'm a rotten friend, leaving you behind all the time, Jewel. I'm so sorry."

"Stop apologising. You're a wonderful friend."

"No, I'm not."

"This is what you need. I don't begrudge you for doing this."

"I need you, too. And I see how sad it makes you and it… I just…"

"Don't worry about me."

"Can't help it! I'm always worried about somebody and I try to play it off like everything's cool and everything's gonna get fixed, eventually, but–"

"Tangle."

Silence intrudes like a burst dam, then extends for some time, like a river that engulfs the world.

"You used your mom voice, just now."

"I know. It worked."

"No fair, Jewel." A smile, boyish and handsome, is reflected back in the iridescent curve of a shell. "Gonna tell me to do my homework, too?"

The beetle giggles into the lemur's bosom.

Tangle wants to cry, again. She's been desiring tears a lot, these past few months.

Eventually, Jewel pulls away enough to peer up into the eyes of her childhood best friend.

"I love you."

"I love you, too."

The lemur accepts the knowing, lopsided smile that the beetle offers.

"I love seeing you alive."

Tangle's tail wraps itself around the desk, instinctively caressing against the grain.

"You need more than this. This little village. This little lifestyle. You're too big."

"I know I've gained a few pounds, no need to rub my face in it."

Jewel rolls her eyes fondly aside, then continues with patience, "Go out there and be bigger. Live your life loudly."

"You're too good to me."

"True."

"Geez."

"And I'll always be here for you whenever you come back. Go out there and have one adventure after another."

The lemur kisses the beetle's forehead, a quick, penetrating blow that draws out their laughter and skewers them on the same spike.

* * *

"Sorry."

Although they continue their brisk walk down the dirt trail, navigating burst roots and jutting stones, Tangle grins sweetly as Whisper meekly slips away, but remains within arm's reach, striding alongside.

"Didn't mean to interrupt your thoughts."

"You're being such a gentlewoman right now, you know that?"

"Mmph."

"Thank you."

"S'fine."

"I was a little chilly, just now. Mostly dry, but chilly. It's the air, yeah? Got a sting to it."

"Told you to pack something warm."

"I did, but then I fell in the river! Remember?"

"Warm and waterproof," the wolf says in a low, slightly aggrieved manner.

"Ohh. Right. You did say that, too."

"Uh-huh."

"But we're still having fun, aren't we? The Wisps are out there, gallivanting. I got wet. You snickered, then pulled me out, then snickered some more. And now, I'm wearing your badass cloak thingy. All good!"

There is no mention of the tension that oftentimes drives the Wisps away, pulling the women together in carnal pleasure and pain, the same tension that was embodied within piercing blue eyes as a lithe body wriggled free from a drenched jacket, betraying something dangerous and exciting and wrong.

The cloak itself has a peculiar weight to it, perhaps by design or perhaps due to the lemur never having worn it, before. She playfully draws it more tightly around herself, enjoying it immensely, almost enough to keep away the evils of whatever it is, exactly, that is happening.

Whisper seems to be glancing mysteriously at Tangle, trying to be subtle but akwardly unsure of how to ask, eyes harmlessly shut.

"I was thinking about Jewel."

"I see."

"Sorry, I was kinda out of it for a bit, wasn't I?"

"I was concerned."

"I'm not mad about the river or anything else."

"But you're unhappy."

"Homesick," the lemur gently corrects, giving the wolf a friendly wink. "Just a little homesick."

"She's a good person. Jewel."

"She really is."

"She is… a home, for you, too. Yes?"

"In a way, yeah, we're always at home in our friends."

"And she is your closest friend."

"Yup!"

"You miss her."

"Terribly."

"It's my fault."

"Nah. I chose this."

"I'm a temptation."

Tangle's amethyst gaze is softened by something vaguely flirtatious. "You sure are, pal."

Whisper manages a coy smirk despite the weight of her guilt that occupies her shoulders much like her cloak usually would, making her bend slightly forward.

"If not for you," the lemur adds with an airy wave, hand emerging thus momentarily, calloused palm outward, "I'd have found some other wandering tough guy to indoctrinate with my cuteness, so I could latch onto them and be a general bother."

"You're no bother."

"And you know if not for you, I'd still be stuck in that little village, dying inside, and Jewel would be dying with me because it kills her to see me suffer like that."

"Yes."

"Because there is nobody else. Nobody who could replace you. I need you, see."

The wolf watches that calloused hand rise again, tracing something akin to a nonsensical constellation.

"And even if there's holiness, up there, looking down, and he or she or it or them offer to make me somebody to replace you, I'll say no thanks, I'm sticking with you."

Whisper's throat is dry. She swallows compulsively, gritting her teeth, and her eyes burn behind their tightly sealed lids.

"Even then, though, I'm a little homesick and I miss her. That's why I've been a little off since you pulled me out the water."

"Would you like to go back?"

"Yeah." Tangle then shakes her head, chuckling.

"I can take you back."

"Sure, but I wanna stay with you even more, so I can go wherever you go."

"But I'm damaged."

"Me, too."

"Let me take you home."

"Too late."

In a swift movement, the wolf pins the lemur to the knotted trunk of a tree.

Tangle shudders, her smile broken, but unsurprised, muscular tail entwining its way around Whisper's rigid body.

"I love you!" is the harsh, bittersweet cry through fangs, spoken with such strength, yet its volume barely above the breath it took as its cost.

"I love you, too."

* * *

"Sometimes, I wonder…"

Feminine hands trace a defined ribcage through fabric. Soothing up and down motions, quelling the thrumming anxieties within.

"I wanna help. But am I helping? Am I doing more harm than good? Do my intentions really matter? Are they even that wholesome, at all? Am I fooling myself?"

Jewel doesn't know what Tangle is talking about, but the beetle contributes, anyway. "Maybe you think you haven't saved any lives these past few months you've spent wandering the wilderness, living that adventure you always wanted with someone strong and brave enough to live it with you."

The lemur sniffles over the carapace of a beloved.

"But I believe you're saving at least two lives."

The women hold each other close.

"Yours and hers."

* * *

"I'm already home."


	6. pillows

"Sooo…"

Standing aside, Whisper contemplates the bookshelf, surprised once more by how populated its shelves are, fingertips wandering along spines, thus noting afresh. She'd never taken her host as an avid reader, but even then, she can appreciate the collection of science fiction, ancient fantasy and salty swashbuckling adventures as the sort of collection a woman like Tangle is most likely to keep.

"Does this make us, eh," the lemur begins to ask with a bashful lilt and a hand buried in her thick fur, amethyst eyes on the wolf's shapely back, "like, you know… girlfriends?"

The cloak and mask remain set aside, leaving their occupant exposed, vulnerable.

"Friends with benefits, maybe?"

The Wisps are playing in the garden, spared this gentle confrontation.

"Too much to ask, or am I asking too soon?"

"I don't know."

"In reference to…?"

"Everything."

"Right. Um."

Whisper turns slowly, facing Tangle with an apologetic, awkward smile.

"The unknown." The lemur now taps her chin in thought. "Everything…"

"I'm sorry."

"I wish you wouldn't apologise."

"Hrrm."

"Don't worry about any of it. This everything we don't even know."

"Aren't you scared?"

"It's my first, well, thing. This everything. So… maybe a little."

"Scared… of me?"

"I can be, sometimes. The teeth and those eyes, y'know."

The wolf makes a faint sound of anxiety, her tail curling insecurely about her legs.

"All the better to see me and eat me. But they're all lovely, too. You're lovely."

"Stop that."

"Stop what?"

"Saying these things."

"But you're the cutest when you–"

"Tangle!"

"Look ready to dissolve," she finishes quickly, ceasing her chin tapping to raise both hands in joking surrender. "Alright, alright! I'll stop flirting with ya if that's what you want."

Whisper huffs fondly, hiding her blush by returning to the bookshelf.

"For now. Dunno how long I'll remember to resist. You're so very–"

"I have good aim."

"Gonna throw a book at me, huh?"

The wolf shyly rubs her arm, drawing a line through the carpet with the toe of her boot, almost ready to leave as originally intended. She only needs to don her mask and cloak and call her Wisps, then she can vanish with the motion of the sun. "Yes."

"Then I'll finish by saying that basically, I love you enough to be brave. And I'm willing to work with you on this everything we've got, if you are, too."

A subtle sigh into the void, almost lost, like a passing, carefree thought.

"Anyway. I reckon we've just gotta work this all out in our own time, in our own way, and that's all there is to it."

"To everything."

"Yeah! So, stop saying sorry to me. Okay? And don't agonise over this. We'll be fine."

There is no response.

The lemur waits, then worries, and waits some more.

Eventually, "Tangle."

"Whisper?"

"I'm not sure…"

Optimism is dimming.

"If we should."

An expression of hurt.

"Don't misunderstand me, please."

"I try really hard not to."

"It isn't because of you."

"This old cliché? What, you think you're too damaged for love?"

"Not so simple. Not… acceptable, but…"

"Bull!"

"Tangle, please."

"You're super lovable! I love you to bits and so does Jewel!"

A patient process of inhaling, exhaling.

"You just struggle to love yourself. So you push that on others around you, assuming they must hate you, too."

"Yes."

"Bull." Hands having knotted themselves together, Tangle shakes her head furiously, scattering a few tears. "Why, Whisper? Why do you treat yourself like this?"

"Don't cry."

"That's what I hate. God! This… What's the word? Self-deprecation? But worse. I dunno the word for it, but it's the thing that's bad about you."

"Bad… about me…"

"You're a good person! But what's bad, is this thing I can't even name! It's a whole bunch of things in one thing. Like…" Passionate gesticulation, as if churning and squeezing concepts into matter. "The fact that you kill yourself every day with criticism and doubt and dread and hatred. But you're so wonderful and I keep trying to tell you and you still don't believe me!"

"Please, don't yell."

Tearful eyes widen. "Wha…?"

"It's okay that you're loud, sometimes. I even… like that, about you. Your exuberance. How alive you are. You make me feel warm. Like I'm still alive, too."

"I… I didn't mean…"

"But I don't respond well, when people yell at me."

"I'm sorry, I–"

"S'fine." Whisper is tracing the words that embellish the spines. "My fault."

"No. Sweetie, it's really not."

"Hmph."

The lemur gives the wolf a loving lookover, then bravely wipes the tears away, sniffling into something closer to composure.

"Sorry I made you cry."

"Nah." Ready, now, Tangle carefully approaches Whisper from behind, a generally unwise thing to do. "Don't worry about it."

"Wish I was better with… feelings n'stuff."

"God, you're the cutest."

"I'm dangerous."

"That's true. Still adorable."

"Don't wanna damage you, too."

Having closed the distance slowly, the lemur leans in to lightly brush her lips over the wolf's tense shoulder, a foolish errand that evinces pleasurable shivers.

"Too good for me, anyway."

Tangle slowly parts her hands, reaching around, emboldened.

"You're being reckless." Whisper takes a moment to chew her lip, tilting her head a little, battling against instinct and giving ground away to a creature that should stand no chance with these delicate kisses, yet their effect is almost crippling. A trained torso is thus rendered malleable between mostly inexperienced, wandering palms, capturing her softly in calloused ministrations. "Go seduce someone nice and… hnngh… normal."

"I'm an eccentric sorta guy," the lemur murmurs leisurely through her work, with a bowed head and apparent distraction, although she is listening, reading the body in her embrace for reluctance, ready to withdraw.

The wolf chews her lip harder, claws raking rudely over spines as she fumbles for something to grasp onto.

"This is… really turning you on, huh?"

"Grrmph. Yes."

Tangle realises that she is suddenly the one in power, here, and reluctantly ends her dismantling ministrations with a dragging nuzzle, sensual caresses morphing clumsily into a cradling hold.

Whisper's head is given time to clear, leaving her in amazement as to the nature of her hostess yet again this day.

"You bit me, scratched me, maybe bruised me a bit. It was surprising for us both. It was intense."

"Mmph."

"But you are not a bad person. I mean that with all my heart. And I'll make you believe me, someday."

There's the unfamiliar urge to cry, just then, which the wolf vehemently denies herself, instead leaning heavily into the lemur's lithe, wiry strength, not knowing if this is the right or healthy thing to choose at this point, defeated.

"You're just tortured by the bad things that happened, the bad things that have been done to you. It's screwed up the way you see yourself. But I'm on the outside, so trust me, I see you differently."

"Can't let you in."

"I don't expect you to. But I can talk to you through the keyhole. And even if you leave the door ajar, I won't come in uninvited, so you're safe with me."

The words sound so comforting. And when spoken with such husky conviction, how can Whisper deny Tangle the reward of claws brushing over fingers, tightening their hold?

"Call this therapeutic, I guess. Since you're not the talkative kind, you can do things with your body and your eyes and you can make those sexy sounds of yours."

"This… isn't your responsibility…."

"You're my friend." The lemur smiles into the wolf's cheek as Whisper draws even closer, increasingly receptive to Tangle's words and touch. "Maybe more, once we've figured out everything."

"You're so warm."

"In the meantime, if it makes you feel better to let go, then I'm here to catch you."

"Warm n'soft."

"Use me. My body, too."

"Smell so good."

"Love's about giving and taking in turn. It's an exchange, see? Loving someone is all about sharing what you have with them, then they agree to share themselves with you. Sometimes people forget to give, but I won't forget. And you never take too much. Honestly, I wanna give you so much more." The lemur squeezes the wolf playfully, garnering a low grunt. "I want to be here, with you, for you, so you can use me and I can be used. Haven't I said that before?"

"You enjoy… being used."

"By you, yeah."

"This is… perverse."

"Is it, really?"

"Yes."

"I'm a little sick, then. And if it heals you, I can do sick."

"I'll hurt you."

"You hurt yourself so much, already. And I… I hate seeing you hurt, like this. So redirect that pain onto me. I can take it. I want to."

"I can't."

"It'll make you feel better. You just have to get over the guilt and the shame of it. And I'll help you do it."

The wolf's lip may bleed, so the lemur brushes her thumb over the wound, teasing an opening with compassionate, patient manipulation, replacing flesh with flesh.

The Wisps don't hear the moan that precedes the puncturing fang.

"I love you and that makes this okay."

Whisper's mouth is full of stifled screams that have sought an escape for years. Her throat aches with the urge, medicated by the taste of blood, the way Tangle endures and tenderly offers herself, a canvas.

"I'm not gonna let you suffer by yourself, keeping it all in, locked up and burning."

The wolf emits a sensual, thoughtless growl.

"God," the lemur utters through a strange, lopsided smile, caught between afraid and aroused, "I like it when you look at me like that."

Blue eyes, piercing and cold, linger on dark, heady amethysts, searching.

"You're so… angry."


	7. bittersweet

Neither of them can claim the normalcy of a couple. None of this had felt natural. Instincts of predator and prey don't apply to friends and lovers.

But then Whisper's hand finds Tangle's in some secret way despite the crowd, an act of boldness disguised with innate modesty, carefully casual and polite.

The lemur forgets what she had been saying, forgets to take another step and stands in silence to savour this sensation, fantasizing again about what they could amount to.

Fantasising, even as the wolf feels a tug on her arm and draws to a stop due to this resistance, being held back, turning to see.

Tangle fantasises, even though Whisper does not use affectionate terms of ownership and submission such as 'girlfriend' or 'soulmate' and shows no such inclination in her vaguely shy face, subtly confused expression.

"You okay?"

The lemur grins, then. But it isn't to be taken at face value. It's like the veneer that makes it hard to see one's expression in a mirror on display outside an antique shop, angled in such a way that it catches the sun.

The wolf is aware that they have stopped in the middle of a sea of strolling people and she does not much appreciate the bustle, her bodily language aloof and uninviting, brows bent with concern and discomfort, her snout lowered slightly to avoid the gazes of strangers as she draws closer to the one she knows and trusts, seeking comfort in the familiarity of kindly amethysts. "What's wrong?"

"Sorry. I'm fine."

"No," Whisper says gently, her hand tightening its hold on Tangle's, a gesture meant to be reassuring. "You're not."

"Okay, yeah, I'm kinda messy right now."

The wolf grows irritable when someone brushes against her in passing, but she remains courteous as she turns to a nearby bench, guiding the lemur very gently along by their joined hands, strangely reminiscent of a mother with a child who may or may not have done something punishable, something worthy of shame and deception.

"We don't have to–"

"Ice cream," is the soft-spoken interjection as another large, clawed hand rises, grasping a slender shoulder, providing no room to argue with the temperate application of force.

Tangle can only giggle tiredly as she is sat down, gazing up at Whisper, looming with compassion.

"Stay. I'll go."

"To get the ice cream."

"Yes." With that said, the wolf lets the lemur go and twists with professional grace to walk away, tail following.

"And…"

Despite such strong strides, Whisper hesitates, noting the fragile break in Tangle's voice.

"You'll be back for me, soon."

The wolf could fall to her knees. But she doesn't.

The lemur eases herself backward and directs an empty gaze at the clouds.

* * *

All things considered, Tangle isn't sure if it's alright to request sex or intimacy. There is never a set time. This arrangement was, at its heart, meant for the other woman's benefit, thus it operates on yet unfamiliar terms.

Whisper seems content with sitting quietly, immune to the lingering looks, curled up on a rock warmed by the sun, carefully reading the map instead of the body that wants, now, to be studied like there's still so much more to find. The paper is frayed at the edges and creased in the middle and enviable within those strong hands.

A calloused finger suddenly touches a pointed ear. Some odd prodding.

The wolf stiffens momentarily, startled, then quickly relaxes when a sidelong glance reveals the lemur has drawn close.

"Sorry. You, uh…"

"Yes?"

Tangle says sorry, again, very quietly whilst feigning brushing some leaf or twig away, although Whisper is immaculate.

The wolf smiles warmly. "S'fine."

The lemur won't admit to how badly she's hurting, standing here, stooped over the source of her desire and anxiety and affection.

"Tickles," is the mild-mannered observation, far from titillated or offended, almost a little worried.

"You, uh… ticklish in other places? Yeah?"

Whisper remains calm and outwardly amiable as Tangle daringly sweeps her fingers swiftly along a lupine cheek, although a brow rises in time with the descent.

"Maybe here?"

"Mm."

"A little lower?" The lemur caresses the underside of the wolf's jaw. "Say, hereish?"

A moment passes between them, passing in silence, and nature seems so stiflingly loud.

"I… I'm making a massive dork of myself, again, aren't I?"

"No."

"I just…"

"S'fine."

"God, I'm… selfish."

Whisper indulges in the scary ability to express herself sincerely, tilting her head back and taking Tangle's wrist in her grasp, stilling the dancing fingers that had not given up their flirtatious efforts.

It's an invitation to explain, but the lemur sighs and says, "We should just forget about it."

The wolf, however, does not let go of the bony wrist.

"Long trek ahead. Don't wanna waste too much time, too much daylight, before we get to the next town or whatever. Hey, where are we going, again?"

"Tangle."

"Yeah, Whisper." The lemur hums her thought, then murmurs, "I'm fine, though," through a smirk. "Don't worry about me."

"I didn't refuse you."

"No need. Moment's gone."

"We… We can… try?"

"You don't want to."

"But–"

"You only think about me, my body, like that… when all that stuff inside is pushing its way to the surface, and you can't or won't fight it anymore, because it hurts so much. And why should you fight? What good has that ever done you?"

The wolf is rendered silent, still.

"Only then, you think of me. Your outlet."

Whisper feels her grip slacken, feels Tangle slip away.

"I can't do that for you now, though."

The wolf watches the lemur rise to her full height, blotting out the sun.

"Not when you're like this."

"That's not true," Whisper argues back, having found her voice, surprised by how strong she sounds.

Tangle opens her mouth, but as a cruel exchange, she says nothing.

"Part of me wants to devour you."

What was meant to frighten, also arouses something strange inside, a desire to be hunted, the instinct of prey. It makes the lemur drag her hand over her abdomen, downwards, as if the abomination is sourced, there, in the forming stone and the pooling heat.

"Even when I'm like this. And I struggle, sometimes, to trust myself, to believe that when left alone with you, I won't."

A tail sweeps over the wolf's leg, caressing tensed muscle.

"My pain doesn't go away. S'permanent. Constant. A howling hunger inside." Blue eyes, which could glimmer in the anguish of lustful self-reflection, remain anonymously shut in the calm. "Is it me?" Whisper's voice has returned to its usually quiet cadence, now. "Is it because of the bad things I've survived, the bad things that were done to me? Can I blame Mimic or Eggman or someone else?"

Tangle feels weakness like knives in her knees, causing her to sink slowly to the grass.

"Or does it come from the bad things I've done?"

* * *

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"No."

Whisper nods respectfully, the jagged remains of the cone revolving slowly between her fingertips.

Watching the strangers drift by like the clouds overhead, Tangle eventually asks, "Isn't it weird, being back in civilisation?" She's finished her ice cream and cone, having a tendency to eat fast.

"Yes."

"We're new here, sure, but it's more than that, don't you think?"

"We're different. Mm."

"Yeah, exactly. We don't fit in with them. These people."

"You should."

"Because I'm social? Maybe. But I'm with you, now. I'm as disjointed as you are and that's how I wanna be."

The wolf slowly extends an arm, seeking the lemur's hand again.

"I know I've got a thing for theatrics."

"I like that about you."

"I wondered to myself, is it because we're closer to wild animals than these domesticated, boring city slickers?"

"Could be."

"Two women, living on the outside, wandering the world, living our adventure, together. Lean and gnawing on the bones of life whilst these guys stay soft 'cause they're complacent enough to stay home and chew the fat."

"There's a thought."

"I know it's silly. And unfair. And… actually, pretty mean."

Whisper drags her thumb slowly back and forth.

"I'm okay with this, though."

"Are you?"

"The truth can be tough, sometimes. But… it's better than…"

The Wisps occupy a treetop, gesturing at hats and hairstyles passing below their branches.

"Clinging to a lie, y'know. Clinging on for your dear, sweet life, and…"

Children notice the Wisps and point and demand their mother's attention, only to be rebuked for foolish imaginings before being inevitably pulled along, swept away by the unseeing adults.

"Some lies may be necessary."

Tangle sighs into the wolf's shoulder, the lemur having turned from the strangers to lean into someone familiar, a friend.

Whisper knows that, for someone charismatic and confident and careless, it'd be so easy to dive in for a kiss. She doesn't do that, though, when people may be watching.

Tangle still hopes for something out of character to happen, though. Or maybe, if she thinks on it a little harder, she hopes it doesn't.


	8. faith

"Can you teach me?" Tangle suddenly asks, as if speaking to her reflection in the lake.

Whisper tilts her head, curious.

"How to fight. Like you, I mean."

There is a pause filled with nature, overcome.

"'Cause," murmurs the lemur with a finger sending ripples through the surface, "you're better at it than me."

The wolf plucks up a cold, smooth pebble at the edge.

"All I do is scrap. I make it up as I go and there's no skill to it. Brute force and speed and flexibility."

She absentmindedly turns it over in her hand.

"That's pretty much all I've got."

"No."

"Yeah, you'd say there's more to me than that."

Their wanderings have led to a shoreline.

"Sometimes, I feel as much of an outsider as you do."

"Yes."

"But you're more okay with being on the outside than I am."

"Yes…"

"Pretty much all of Sonic's crew… They're experienced, strong, cohesive. I so desperately wanna fit in with them. To be part of that crew. An equal, a friend."

Her expression is tender. Turning over the pebble, again, like meditation.

"They like me well enough, sure, and that's because I'm fun and I've been useful. Kinda flattering to imagine that Blaze, of all people, seems to really dig me. But mostly, I feel…"

"Disjointed."

"I sometimes wonder if I come across as super lonely and desperate, 'cause I try so hard. But the cool stuff I do sometimes isn't all my own. I've usually got you beside me, keeping me from getting myself killed, somehow. Heh." Amethyst eyes narrow on their mirror. "A lot like Jewel, really."

"You're still homesick."

"Mmhm."

"I… I can…"

"No," Tangle interjects forcefully, but without coming across as rude, "we're not going back, yet."

"It's no trouble."

"Not 'til this adventure's over."

"I'm more concerned about your happiness."

"You make me happy, Whisper."

Fingers fumble with the pebble, just then.

"And sad. And afraid. And angry. And…"

Blue eyes remain veiled, evasive, despite the anxious stare.

"Horny."

"Mm."

"I catch myself daydreaming about the next time, when you might take me, again."

"Me, too."

"You told me that I'm wrong about you. That I've got power over you. That I can seduce you and make you, even when you're trying valiantly to prohibit yourself."

"Unmake me."

"I've wanted to abuse that power so many times."

Together, wolf and lemur wonder if this will be their last adventure, together. If it ought to be.

"Anyway, will you teach me to fight better?"

"Yes."

"Thanks."

"But you do fight well, even though there is more to learn, and we should never stop learning."

"You've already shown me how to survive without much comfort. This is just part of surviving."

"Fighting well."

"Exactly. Plus…" Tangle playfully slaps the water, distorting her reflection's rueful smirk. "It'll be a fun bonding thing."

Whisper tosses the pebble into the air and, after admiring its arc – the rise, then the fall – she easily catches her prize, gripping it in her strong fist until it hurts, the muscles trembling with the force of being clenched over something so unyielding. She imbues its face with her bodily heat and seethes inside, draining it of its cold.

"Picture a classic montage of the two of us, duking it out in the wild. Getting all hot and sweaty."

"Mmm," the wolf replies, evidently interested.

The lemur falls back on her rump with a relaxed sigh and a cheeky grin, casting a friendly gaze over her shoulder.

"And you're humming some sort of thematic music."

"'Til you ask me to shut up."

"Right."

"Yeah, I can totally picture that."

* * *

"I know things have been a little weird lately, guys."

The Wisps have been gathered together for a private talking-to, surrounding Tangle with innocence and concern, lovingly embraced within the coil of a striped, fluffy tail and reaching hands.

"But Whisper's gonna be just fine and I am, too. We're… gonna work it all out. Everything. Give us time and you'll see, okay?"

The Wisps glance at each other, then return their earnest stares at the lemur, who smiles radiantly down on them. She can't see the pain in her own expression and they don't have the words to tell her.

"We love you."

They don't mean to be distrusting, but it's so strange.

"Remember that, no matter what, we love you and we can face anything if we stick together, because that's what love is all about. That's the power, see?" Tangle caresses heads and draws tiny, answering embraces closer against herself. "You can face anything when you love someone. You can face it all, for them. Even if they don't face it with you. Especially when they do."

The Wisps are still not entirely convinced, but they are comforted.

"And it might take a limb or two, sure, but love makes us stronger. It makes us grateful just to survive, together, because in the end, love's all you've got and we get to see each other again only if we're all alive."

Elsewhere, Jewel is a little intoxicated and relying on the notion that nobody else recognises her in the dim, fumbling her pickup lines as a buxom bat who wandered into town now draws greedy shapes over the beetle's gleaming shell, "Pretty as a diamond." The scent is heady, like perfume and sweat and danger and pine and churning consequences of things that are not done out of mistake, but blood.

Elsewhere, Whisper is walking alone, until she stops and stoops and collapses in the memories that invade her like this, sometimes. The faces of her team, her family, the people she failed to save, the one who was loved and betrayed love for profit. Frustrated by her inability to fully commit to hating him, because there are still happy memories chewing at her insides, too, back when she could openly laugh.

"We've only got each other," murmur soft lips, not entirely certain of everything, but speaking for a woman stubborn enough to hope and brave enough to believe. "We're all there is."

* * *

Whisper stands close behind, readjusting Tangle's stance again, without complaint or insult.

"Sorry," says the lemur, apologetic anyway. "I'm really not trying to suck this bad."

"S'fine. You don't suck. Just need to practice."

"But I have! Like you showed me and I fell on my butt."

"You got up, didn't you?"

"Well, yeah."

The wolf's touch is ghostlike, sweeping over imperfections in slender muscles and bone, using the insinuation of force to make little corrections. "Then keep practicing."

"God." Tangle briefly laughs at the trees and the fractured sky beyond. "I love your logic."

"S'true, though, isn't it?"

"Look, I just wanna know, am I getting any better at this stance thing?"

"You are."

"And you're not just saying that to be nice, right?"

"I'm not. Don't worry."

Amethysts narrow in jest. "Mmm'kay."

"You doubt my honesty?" is the husky question, uttered through teeth and a subtle smile, exhaled against a willing cheek.

"I trust you with my life, buddy."

"But do you doubt my word?"

"Eh, 'doubt' is a strong word in and of itself…"

Whisper gives the lemur in her grasp a gentle squeeze.

"I'm a pain, sure." A turn of the head allows a nuzzle against the wolf. "You love me, though." It disarms and charms, something akin to arousal, but gentler.

"Oh, Tangle."

She could kiss her. It'd be so simple, so easy, if it weren't so complicated and difficult.

Too soon, Whisper eases away, having made all the necessary changes.

And it feels so cold, now.

"Try again."

Cold, even though they share a warm gaze.

"Show me."

* * *

Whisper is suddenly there, close and intoxicating. "You okay?"

"Yeah…" Tangle, remembering her audience, keeps her head down, embarrassment filling her cheeks with the glow of blood under skin and fur.

Silence.

"I'm so stupid."

"No, you're not."

"But that was lame, huh? Asked you to teach me, but I can't get it right, even after all I've been taught so far."

"No. Not lame. Frustrated."

"You don't have to lie to me. I screwed up, again, and I'm still so far behind you."

A large, clawed hand is presented, patiently waiting to be taken.

"You don't have to do that."

"I'm not going anywhere."

The lemur stares at the familiar glove, the creases of a palm, the bend of strong fingers, like talons.

"Not without you."

"Even though you wanted to."

"That's the past."

"The past makes us who we are, now."

"You think I don't know that?"

Eyes dart upward, apologetic.

"Stand," says the wolf, patient yet firm. "And try."

"Again."

"Yes."

"I..."

The urge to kiss her.

"I'm so tired."


	9. doubt

"You're wrong."

"Wouldn't be the first time, eh?"

"You have power. You do things to me. You make me feel powerless, sometimes, and I want you to."

"I'm flattered."

"I'm not."

"Scary, yeah?"

"Scary. Yes."

Tangle drags her hand through her thick fur and it's hard for Whisper not to swoon at merely that casual display of anxiety, insecurity, worry.

"You're, um… very…"

"Sexy?"

The wolf shrinks, reaching for her mask, intending to lower it. But she set it aside, again, and evidently her mind forgot what her muscles still remember.

"Even then, you don't hide from me as often as you used to, you know."

"Maybe… I'm getting used to it."

"Used to me."

"Mmm."

"But it still riles you up."

"I like it too much."

The lemur grins, earning a slightly irritated look.

"It's not funny."

"Sorry. It's just, well, I'm such a dork and you're way out of my league."

"I don't think so."

"Exactly." Amethyst eyes are soft beneath tussled hair that has been attractively combed by abrasive fingers. "Despite my clumsiness, you treat me like I'm dangerous."

"You are dangerous."

"You'd kick my ass in a heartbeat."

"S'different."

"Yeah." A sigh. "You're right. Still. You make me feel like some sorta goddess of, like, feminine wiles or whatever, and it's because you're scared of what I do to you, even though I think I'm doing so little."

"You can seduce me so easily. Like I have no defences. Nothing to hide behind."

"And that mask isn't cutting it anymore, even when you do have it on you."

"Yes."

"Maybe you're not really used to me, then."

"Or maybe you're far more exciting to me, than you think you are."

"Hey." Tangle's grin is silly and it isn't mean-spirited at all. "That's a nice thought."

Whisper relents gradually, her body visibly easing itself where she stands, Wispon resting against her side and mask propped on a rock close by. She could reach for it if she tried, if willing to reach a little further.

"I dunno what to do with it, though."

"Me neither."

"Maybe… I should keep my hands to myself."

"It's torture, the anticipation."

"Anticipation of, um, when I'll seduce you, again."

"Yes. Touch me, feel my body. My scent and my taste."

"You're gonna get me excited with this talk." It's a joke, but it's also sincere.

"Make me and unmake me." The words pass so softly through teeth and a pensive line of barely parted lips. "You're wonderful."

"Aw."

"The things you do are wonderful, too."

"Shucks. I'm blushing. Can you see it? Feels like my face is held up to a flame, y'know."

"It's not just what I can do to you, when my anger seeps its fingers in."

That grin fades, now.

"It's also what you do to me when I'm sober, like this. When I can call myself… myself."

"Oh, Whisper."

"Tangle, my anger doesn't have to push me against you. You could kiss me now and I'd–"

"Dissolve."

The wolf tips back her head and breathes, shoulders slackened, long hair flowing with a breeze that just so happens to stir at that moment.

"God, you're so beautiful."

"Thank you."

"I'm not saying this to be funny, but it's incredible just to watch you, sometimes. Kicking ass and helping people out for free. Always strong, always mysterious."

"Not always."

The lemur appreciates these hours they take for themselves, spent talking rather than adventuring. It's as if she didn't come for the thrill of a chase or a fight or venturing into different places. Not even for the unsettling sexual dynamic of their relationship, as it comes and goes.

"You know me better than most."

It's as if Tangle came to Whisper for this. To talk and to listen and to understand. Or to try. To fail.

"You know me when I'm weak, when I'm open. You know me as I am, now. Sober. And you know me when I'm not."

"I like you in all your states."

"I dread myself, anyway, and I dread you, too."

"Because you take it all out on me. The anger and everything else that eats you up all the time, except for those peaceful moments you take from me, my body, when you finish in me." The lemur bites her lip briefly, then murmurs, "And you beat yourself up because you have needs and they make you feel so guilty, but I'm still here and I'm still willing to be used. I want you to use me. I can take it every time, anytime."

"You haven't tried to convince me there's any other way."

"And I hate myself for that."

The wolf seems to be searching the skies for some trace of heaven.

"You need relief and I'm the only one offering any. But it's a big world. Maybe you could try something else or someone else, but then, what'd happen to us?"

"You like it too much."

"Yeah," Tangle says, like a part of herself just went to sleep. "Because I can seduce you, maybe even drive you to do it, and it's so painfully pleasurable, I daydream about you and I daydream about it and I seek it out, sometimes, by pushing your buttons until you open your eyes and look at me and see me for what an awful friend I really am, because it's one thing to let you take me, but it's different to beg to be taken."

"I dread myself because I have done such things to you. I dread you, because I can't resist you, when you do such things to me."

"Then, does that make us both horrible friends?"

"Perhaps."

"Maybe we're just bad for each other."

"But it feels so good."

Another breeze.

The lemur finally comprehends how a soft kiss on a soft morning can be so devastatingly destructive as the wolf keeps her distance without being far away at all, the sun rising to greet them, bathing them in autumn hues.

* * *

"That's what you think? You think I could ever leave?"

"Yes…"

"Whisper, I love you!"

"I know, Tangle."

"No. I don't think you do. Or I don't think you totally understand what my love means. Maybe because you try not to think too much about it, because it unnerves you, that I love you so much."

"Mmmph."

"Then let me break it down for you. Firstly," the lemur says with patience and affection, attending to a minor injury the wolf sustained from a troublemaker on the road who may have been insane as well as isolated, "I'm not leaving. No matter what. I won't do it, because I love you so much."

Whisper is seated on the ground with Tangle close beside, worried Wisps encircling, forgetting the tension as they watch the tender work of calloused hands.

"Secondly, I don't blame you for any of this. I don't look at you like you're some sorta sinner I'm saving and I don't think you owe me a thing."

"Hmph."

"Thirdly, I am happy to stay and to be your outlet. I can take the pain, and I will, if it makes you feel even a little bit better, for a little while." Feeling poetic all of a sudden, the lemur adds with a giggle, "For a smile, I can take your teeth."

"How romantic."

"Think of it as kinky rather than wrong."

"What if it really is wrong?"

"Then let's be wrong, for as long as you need us to be."

"Unfair."

"Oh?"

"You seduce me, too."

"Should I stop?"

At the thought of this woman being reduced to merely a passive recipient of abuse, the wolf shifts uncomfortably, but says nothing, not knowing what to say.

"You don't want this to be one-sided. But you're not being forced and neither am I. You'd stop if I asked you to. I'll stop if that's what you ask."

"Okay."

"And that brings me to my fourth point…"

Whisper grunts as Tangle applies a little more burning antiseptic.

"Sorry."

"S'fine."

"As I was saying, fourthly, I won't go, unless you tell me to. So you won't lose me. Never, 'cause I won't leave you."

The wolf turns to peer at the lemur's efforts.

"But you can push me away. And you can set boundaries, even if you think I'll take them down. I'll learn to be respectful and you'll learn to assert yourself. Eventually…"

Whisper is surprised by the roguish wink Tangle fires back.

"You might not have to hunt me for a little tail, know what I'm sayin'?"

The wolf turns away again, pawing weakly at the blood that rises in her muzzle.

"I know that you hunt out of trauma. I'm not denying that. I'm not making it small or insignificant or unreal. What happened to you…" The lemur finishes her work with a sigh. "You've been hurt bad, way worse than I can say, and I wish I could just fix it. Wish I knew how."

Whisper is surprised, again, when Tangle leans over for a careful, gentle embrace.

"Maybe there's another way. A healthier way, y'know, to cope and to heal. And I'd like to help you find it. Like… explore other options." The lemur says this close to the wolf's cheek, still flushed.

"Thank you."

"In the meantime, use me if you want to, whenever you feel it clawing its way out. Don't be scared. Don't feel gross about it. Don't worry about me. Nothing to be guilty about. Nothing to agonise over. We'll be fine."

The embrace would end, but Whisper timidly, tentatively, returns it, instead, leaning slightly into Tangle's slender frame, one head nestling against another.

The Wisps draw closer, too, combining their efforts into a comforting bubble of littler hugs all around.

"And I'll kiss you softly every morning from now on, until you accept that last part." The lemur's mouth forms a smile that is kind. "If you're okay with it."

"I love you," is the wolf's reply, barely above a breath.


	10. home

Whisper stiffens, then feels the cold air on her slickened back as Tangle obediently withdraws, recognising the instinct for space.

Quickly, though, the lemur brings the blankets closer, hastily filling the emptiness with their paltry compensation, careful not to caress the curled wolf because it's better not to when she gets like this, when the cuddling must stop and the distance must start again. Still, it hurts, and soon enough the blankets fill the void between their naked bodies, but nothing soaks up the oozing pain.

And Whisper can feel Tangle's gentle gaze even when calloused hands hold their peace, amethysts tracing tensed muscles and ruffled fur where exposed.

"Goodnight," she says, calm and quiet.

"G'night," is the barely audible reply.

For some seconds the lemur continues to gaze upon the wolf's reclined form, desiring the intimacy of falling asleep whilst cuddling, until eventually rolling over, resigned to repetition although this empathy is tainted with selfish disappointment.

"You said you wanted to make us work."

Startled, Tangle says nothing, her head echoing instead with Whisper's words which, for all their mild-mannered delivery, might as well have been a bolt of lightning cracking the sky into bits.

"And I said I want that, too."

The lemur embraces her own tail as a substitute for another body, but it never works, listening, unsure if more words will follow.

"Do you still want to?" the wolf asks gently, without intending anything cruel or condescending.

"Yes."

"Good."

Tangle's ear quirks as the mattress creaks, shifting with readjusted weight.

"Then…"

A strong hand, tipped with claws, kindly settles on her shoulder.

"I'm going to do something brave."

She can only choke on her tears as Whisper softly settles in place, like it's not unnatural and confusing and possibly perverse, embracing the lemur from behind.

"Is this okay?" the wolf asks in a way that makes Tangle giggle wetly.

"Y-yeah, this is perfect."

Whisper's hand is warm on a ribcage, littered with crisscrossing wounds beneath fur, inflicted by that same hand that now holds harmlessly, and it's hard for the lemur to comprehend that this is happening. "Mm."

"Is this… okay w-with you, though?"

"Yes." The wolf surprises further by drawing somehow closer, nuzzling at a veiled bruise. "S'wonderful."

"I mean… if you wanna stop and… m-move away from me, I–"

"I'm fine if you're fine."

"Y-yeah, but–"

"As long as you're happy to have me here, I'll be happy where I am."

"This is…" Tangle clears her throat and fights to steady her voice in all the giddiness. "Kinda wow, huh?"

"Mmhm."

"You're… Oh, god. Wow."

Whisper smirks faintly whilst pushing against her urge to isolate, overcoming her trauma in bittersweet inches of given ground, the process mostly sweet, strangely empowering.

"You said… you wanted to be held, but you couldn't, but now… you're…"

The wolf finds a hand settling over hers, fingers linking together.

"Holding me." The lemur makes an impressed noise, then gives in to a few more tearful giggles, shivering a little.

"Cold?"

"No, but I am super, duper excited!"

"Oh, Tangle."

"Whisper, I love you." This reply is spoken like it's the answer to everything, with confidence freed of arrogance, faith devoid of delusion, hope without the fatigue of disappointed experiences.

"I love you, too."

"This… is a couple thing, maybe?"

At this, the wolf grows rigid again, drawing the lemur's awareness to how relaxed her lover had been moments before.

"Sorry. Too much, too soon?"

Whisper bites down on the rising anxiety, forcing herself to breathe.

"I'm so sorry."

"No."

Afraid to move, Tangle bears witness without eyes to the sensation of the wolf crumbling against the lemur's back, like a castle wall giving way to a cannonball.

"Girlfriends," is the tiny, husky word, admitting to so much.

Tangle dissolves then, too, unable to stop her giggles from returning.

Whisper doesn't mind, taking delight in such sweet sounds, bending to bury her blushing face against silky shoulder blades, drawing her legs closer against lithe thighs, entangling.

It's all very sudden, but after all this time, it took too long. The women share mirth in their relieved distress, finding mutual climax in their catharsis.

"Girlfriends?" the lemur asks after seconds of incoherent, yet understood noise.

"Girlfriends," the wolf confirms shyly, bold enough to have a voice at all, rewarded with a playful rub of Tangle's slender backside against Whisper's groin.

"Ooh, I'm liking the sound of it…"

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, it's getting me all worked up, know what I mean?"

Whisper helplessly smiles against Tangle's back, arms tightening their embrace, fingers interweaving more securely.

"Girlfriend. I'm a girlfriend."

"Me, too."

"You're my girlfriend. And I'm your girlfriend. We're totally each other's girlfriends."

The wolf coyly rises, pushing herself to rest her muzzle against the lemur's cheek. "Mmmph."

"That sounds right, you know?"

Timid kisses try their best to erase the tears that have soaked through a grin, not impeding it at all.

"Ha, I've never had a girlfriend before!"

"Really?" Whisper murmurs in-between.

"I was saving myself for the right one." Tangle is quick to soothe when those kisses pause again. "Don't worry. I know she's you."

"How?" The pause continues.

"You're that adventure I've been looking for. The adventure I wanna live."

The kiss doesn't return.

"I love you."

"I'm your first."

"Does that matter?"

The wolf is speechless, now, and the lemur takes advantage, turning her head and leaning back to softly capture unprepared lips.

This kiss seems to last forever until it doesn't, and in that stretch of fictitious eternity, it is the most destructive event of all.

When Tangle eases her mouth away, it not only gives them room to breathe, to share their breaths and to contemplate their thundering heartbeats, but it forces Whisper's eyes to open.

The blue is piercing and cold, plunging into the tranquil patience of amethysts. Hungry and alert, predatory and cornered, as if seeing one way out in the answering stare of subdued prey, only one perceived escape in the living flesh within tooth's reach, organs pulsating beneath the cage of claws that sink almost inches in.

"You're still angry."

"Yes."

"You might stay this way for the rest of our lives, together."

"Yes…"

"It's not too much, for me. As long as I can be with you, I'll be yours."

"Even if… I can't be fixed, someday? If being mine condemns you to… this?"

"I'm in love with you."

Although the wording hasn't changed all that much, the difference is like a mountain to a molehill, and the lack of an answering confirmation is deafening.

"Don't be scared."

"I'm scared mostly for you, Tangle."

"I hardly like looking at my own reflection, anymore, but that's not your fault. Whisper, I wanna help, but…" The lemur rubs the bare sole of her foot languidly against the wolf's shapely leg, rustling beneath the covers. "I'm not even sure I'm actually helping you. Maybe I'm doing nothing to make a difference, or maybe I'm making it worse. You're not the bad guy, here."

"You're not bad, either."

"I'm not so sure about that."

Whisper marvels at how the atmosphere in a room can change so drastically so many times in such a short space of time.

"But you know how badly I like it, when you fuck me the way you do."

She scrapes her palm along her lover's flat, firm belly, her touch made heavier by the calloused hand still interwoven over hers.

"A beautiful, complex woman like you wouldn't look twice at a lonely, awkward oaf like me if you weren't so damaged. Isn't that just the most awful thing for me to say?"

"You're wonderful," she tries to say, but the words come out mangled and hoarse as her grasp fumbles with a breast, roughly grazing a nipple until it swells, hardening, to be rolled, crushed.

"I'm an optimist, but even in the worst case scenario where it turns out you don't get better and I only make you worse, I… Oh, god…"

Something primordial is growled into a slender shoulder as one pelvis thrusts, signifying urges.

"I'll still be here for you. Loving you and… trying to…"

Blue eyes gaze upward, watching pleasured torment through lashes, as amethysts roll aside.

"Be a hero… to use in all the ways you may need, or… want."

"Want…"

"And that's why I'm a… terrible friend, in the end. I'm open… to taking that chance."

"I want…"

* * *

There's been a wedding. The whole village celebrates it. There's not much room to refuse.

"Thanks for staying for this," Jewel says with a wary gaze on the long sleeve, because Tangle hates to have her arms encumbered. But the beetle supposes that the lemur wanted to be better dressed for the occasion. "Will you two be off tomorrow?"

"Bright and early, yeah."

The excuse had been that adventures leave their marks in the form of minor injuries in strange places of the body, and yet this was a lie and the secret it hid made its presence felt like something skulking and strange, gnawing yet never getting fatter, a poor hunter of weakness, perhaps more akin to a creature that would scavenge.

"At least have tea with me, please."

"Don't worry about it," Tangle says whilst drawing Jewel closer, the words sounding heavier than intended, distraction drawing attention elsewhere.

A little farther apart from them, Whisper is surrounded by her anxious Wisps, evidently seeing something in the beautiful ceremony that she doesn't say aloud.

* * *

"Do you understand me, now?"


End file.
